Andrew Wurmser

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Research Interests

Neural Stem Cells are brain-specific, somatic cells that were originally proposed to differentiate only to neuronal and glial cell types. Bromo-deoxyuridine-labeling of actively dividing cells in the postnatal central nervous system indicated that neural stem cells are concentrated at interfaces with the vasculature within proliferative clusters comprised of 40% neurons and glial cells, 37% endothelial cells and ~1% smooth muscle cells. These newly-formed cells and vascular structures define the extracellular environment or "niche" of the neural stem cell.

The traditional view suggests that Bromo-deoxyuridine-labeled endothelial cells within the stem cell niche arise by angiogenesis, the process whereby blood vessel-associated endothelial cells proliferate to form new vascular branches directed at oxygen- and nutrient-deprived tissue. Believed to be the paradigm for vascularization in adult, angiogenesis has been proposed to be a key determinant underlying the growth of solid tumors, the metastasis of cancerous cells and the accumulation of amyloid beta peptide associated with Alzheimer disease. Unexpectedly, we found that instructive, intercellular signals divert neural stem cells from the ectodermal neural lineages, instead inducing neural stem cells to become mesodermal endothelial and smooth muscle cells, the major cellular components of the vasculature.

Current Projects

The mechanism by which neural stem cells convert to endothelial and smooth muscle cells is referred to as stem cell plasticity, a poorly understood phenomenon whereby tissue-specific stem cells broaden their developmental repertoires and differentiate to cells of another lineage. Thus, neural stem cell plasticity rather than angiogenesis may account for a significant proportion of blood vessel generation in brain, expanding the importance of the adult neural stem cell in maintaining the cellular composition and function of the central nervous system. Our goal is to determine whether the neural stem cell plays an important, non-angiogenic role in the physiological and pathological remodeling of the vasculature.

Selected Publications

Wurmser A. E., Nakashima K., Summers R. G., Toni N., D'Amour K. A., Lie D. C., Gage F. H. 2004. Cell fusion-Independent Differentiation of Neural Stem Cells to the Endothelial Lineage. Nature 430(6997): 350-356.

Wurmser A. E., Palmer T. D., Gage F. H. 2004. Cellular Interactions in the Stem Cell Niche. Science 304(5675): 1253-1255.

Wurmser A. E. and Gage F. H. 2002. Stem Cells: Cell Fusion Causes Confusion. Nature 416(6880): 485-487.

Last Updated 2006-08-07